Winds of Doom
by Abicion
Summary: After becoming an embittered Tira user, Soul Edge decides to change his main.
1. Chapter 1

A single streak of lightning cracked across the night sky as Talim cautiously entered the dilapidated chapel her divine power had guided her to. As a priestess of the wind, it was her destiny to cleanse the world of the scourge Soul Edge had created, and her intuition told her a great evil was nearby.

"Hi~."

Talim quickly peered toward the half-collapsed roof of the sanctuary and saw the figure of a girl barely older than herself calling down to her in a rather chipper voice. The speaker's brown hair was tied in lopsided pigtails, and her lips were curled into a cheerful smile that distracted from the mischievous glare in her eyes. She was sitting with her legs swaying from a high window pane, and she was holding the Eiserne Drossel, her signature oversized chakram, under one of her gloved arms. Directly behind her were the cracked and dusty remains of what had been a beautiful stained glass window depicting a joyous angel battling a sorrowful demon.

The brunette leapt from her alcove and landed on her feet with soft grunt. She walked toward Talim with her round weapon hanging from her armored fingers as she spoke.

"It's about time you showed up."

Her mouth turned to a pouting frown.

"It's boring when I have no one to play with."

Talim slowly backed away from Tira's approach in defense. Her unclasped Syi Salika and Loka Luha, her twin bladed tonfa, from the ribbons of her belt and raised her arms into a brawling stance. The brown leather of her fingerless gloves wrapped tightly around the hilts of the two weapons as she forcefully replied.

"Tira, you know why I'm here! I can't let you carry out Soul Edge's will any longer!"

Tira stopped in place and allowed the edge of her ring blade to rest against the stone floor of the chapel.

"Aww, and here I was going to ask you if you had any interest in joining him willingly."

Talim responded to her adversary with a rageful glare.

"I'd never!"

Tira only sighed and shook her head.

"Figures. You've always been the goodie two-shoes type, Talim."

The same playful grin as before suddenly reappeared on her soft face. Tira's free hand then clenched into a fist before she extended it toward Talim.

"He was expecting you to say that, and he gave me this in case you declined the offer."

Tira's steel palm opened, revealing a small, glowing, knife-shaped shard of the mythical Soul Edge. Talim gasped briefly at this sight, but she quickly reasserted herself and spoke in a determined voice.

"Give that to me, Tira! I have to destroy it!"

The pigtailed assassin carefully placed the shard into a pocket in her loose-fitting red combat dress before she teased opponent.

"Oh, don't worry. I'll give it to you eventually, but probably not in a way you're going to like."

Talim's eyes narrowed.

"If you get in my way, I'll have to kill you."

Tira's expression brightened with excitement at Talim's threatening words. She lifted the Eiserne Drossel in a fighting stance of her own before replying cheerfully.

"Sounds fun!"

Having heard enough, Talim suddenly lunged forward and stabbed with the tip of one tonfa in a punching motion. Tira quickly responded by flipping backwards to dodge Talim's attack. The wind dancer continued to push forward and aggressively slash at her opponent with alternating strikes, but Tira tactfully blocked each attack with the edge of her chakram.

After the sound of steel colliding with steel echoed off of the crumbling chapel walls several times, Tira took the offensive by interrupting Talim's advances with a strong kick to the gut and leaping to the side to put substantial distance between the two teenage warriors. As Talim recovered and held her bare, tanned waist in pain, Tira used her weapon as an improvised boomerang and threw it in an angry, impulsive attempt to cut her enemy in two. Talim's reflexes allowed her to quickly dodge the deadly attack by rolling underneath its flight path, and Tira growled slightly in anger when the weapon returned to its master's hands after cutting through nothing but air.

Tira then unexpectedly dashed forward to close the distance between herself and Talim. Talim raised her weapons defensively and, just as she reached melee range, Tira sporadically jumped into the air and somersaulted over her enemy. Talim turned her head to carefully track Tira's movements, but her concentration was broken when she suddenly cried out in pain and staggered forward. While in midair, Tira had withdrawn the cursed Soul Edge fragment from her attire and stabbed at her unsuspecting target. When Tira's feet hit the ground, the pointed shard easily punctured Talim's silky green vest and pierced the back of her left shoulder.

Talim's weapons slipped from her hands and clattered to the ground as the young priestess suddenly found herself virtually paralyzed by pain. She collapsed to her knees, then slowly looked over her shoulder toward Tira as she winced. Tira giggled softly and let the Eiserne Drossel rest at her side again before she spoke.

"Looks like I win."

Talim grit her teeth in contempt at Tira's words. She then reached behind her neck with her right hand to remove the pulsating shard, but she quickly found herself in even more agony as touching the fragment sent pain shooting into her fingertips and through her right arm. The demonic weapon was protecting its hold over her, and it wouldn't allow itself to be removed until it had injected its full dose of poison into its victim.

Tira watched in curiosity as her defeated opponent was slowly overtaken by her master's power. Talim suddenly raised her empty hands to the sides of her head and began groaning as she heard what seemed like thousands of ghostly voices echo through her mind and attempt to seduce her. The sinister chorus then began violating her mind, reading her most private thoughts and memories and drowning them in demands for mindless servitude. Her entire life was an open book, and the invading force was ripping out any pages that didn't satisfy its agenda. Talim soon began vigorously shaking her head, causing her braided green hair and the golden hassles on her shaman headdress to bob about as she struggled against the dark power.

"No... No! I won't do it! It's wrong!"

The veins in Talim's arm closest to the wound suddenly turned black with evil energy, and soon the upper portion of her left shoulder sported a mark that roughly resembled a spider web tattoo. All of her strengths as a nimble fighter now become her greatest weakness, as her small, lean frame allowed the Soul Edge's power to surge through her body with little resistance. As the weapon slowly polluted her heart with its malice, Talim's struggles subsided. She remained in a kneeling position as her head hung downward and her arms dropped limply at her sides.

After Talim sat silently in this position for some time, Tira hoisted her chakram onto her shoulder and walked in front of her fallen adversary. When she spoke, Talim continued to kneel motionlessly at her feet.

"Hey, are you okay? You're no use to him dead."

Tira suddenly stepped back with a slight start when Talim abruptly raised her head and her eyelids fluttered open in full alert. Talim's eyes were now bloodshot, and a purple aura lit her normally brown irises. She then carefully reached toward her left shoulder again, quietly purring as she withdrew the bloodied shard of the Soul Edge fragment from her flesh and placed it in her belt. She seemed to enjoy the pain, and the blackened marks on her shoulder remained visible as if to brand her. When she lifted Syi Salika and Loka Luha from the ground, the blessed tonfa suddenly warped their appearance into a pair of dark, leathery claws that pulsated with life in their master's hands. Talim rose to her sandal-clad feet with her new equipment and peered toward Tira with a demented grin.

"So, you must be his old toy."

Tira raised her right eyebrow in slight puzzlement before responding.

"What exactly do you mean by 'old toy'?"

Talim's crazed smile grew wider as her voice took on a more sinister tone.

"Can't you hear Soul Edge's voice, Tira? He's saying you're nothing but a broken doll to him. He's tired of your antics, and he's asking me to be his new pet."

She lifted her twin blades into a fighting stance before she continued to taunt Tira.

"He never wanted me to join you. He wants me to replace you."

Tira's confused expression instantly turned to one of rage as Talim taunted her. She raised her ringed weapon back into a fighting stance as she partially muttered her next words back to Talim.

"After everything I've done for that bastard... I guess I'll have to mess up his plans."

Talim answered the youthful assassin's challenge by suddenly slashing with one of her demonic weapons. When Tira attempted to block with the Eiserne Drossel this time, Talim's new strength allowed the her to slice the ringed weapon clean into two with her living tonfa. Tira briefly gasped in shock as the two pieces of the chakram fell to the ground, then shook her head to rid herself of her worries before speaking again.

"Then I'll just kill you with this!"

Tira spread her arms and leapt forward to capture Talim in a tight hug. She then quickly closed her eyes and roughly pushed her lips toward Talim's. This bizarre ritual was sure to seal the corrupted priestess's fate, as it allowed Tira to use her own unholy power to absorb the life of her victim. Strangely, however, Tira didn't feel the soul of a young woman screaming in horror as it was helplessly pulled from its body as she expected. She only felt emptiness within Talim, as if the girl she was embracing was only a spiritless shell of who she had been moments earlier.

When Tira's eyes opened again, they only met the crazed glare of Talim's, which were now as lively as ever. Tira stepped back in disbelief.

"How... How the Hell did you...?"

Talim replied by lowering her head to feign shyness.

"Oh, Tira... I didn't know you felt that way about me..."

When she raised her head to speak again, her sinister grin returned.

"Too bad you still have to die."

Talim suddenly slashed again with one tonfa, and Tira desperately raised her left arm to block the attack with her steel gauntlet. The weapon's claw cut through the armor plating with little effort and swiftly severed Tira's forearm. As Tira instantly grabbed her bleeding stump and howled in agony, Talim took one final slash toward her opponent's unshielded neck. The tip of the demonic weapon left a deep slit across Tira's throat, and brown-haired fighter's screams abruptly fell silent as she lifelessly crumpled to the ground.

With her initiation complete, Talim casually reattached her weapons to her belt. After standing in eerie silence for a few moments, she suddenly raised her head to answer her new calling. This process felt similar to the vague memories she still had of serving as a priestess for the wind tribe she was raised by, but now she was carrying out the will of a different deity. She appeared to speak to herself as her rabid eyes looked through a large hole in the chapel ceiling and toward the black, stormy sky.

"Of course, Master. I'll pry it out of Algol's dead hands if I have to."

Talim's head lowered after she said this. When she turned to exit the ruined sanctuary, her eyes briefly peered toward Tira's mutilated corpse. This gruesome sight brought a tickled feeling to Talim's broken mind and caused her to begin giggling. Her gleeful bursts quickly became more frantic and hysterical, and the once holy ruins were soon filled with the echoes of a young girl's shrill, psychotic laughter.


	2. Alternate Ending

Note: This alternate ending to "Winds of Doom" exists because, sometimes, evil can be cute.

* * *

As Talim continued to clutch her head and writhe on the ground, Tira knelt to one knee and placed an armored hand on her rival's shoulder. If the two girls were going to spend an eternity together as partners, she figured she might as well try to be friendly about it.

"Hey, fighting it is just going to make it worse. It's not so bad once you get used to it."

Talim seemed to ignore Tira's advice, and only violently shook her head some more. After a final painful squeal, however, her resistance was slowly quelled by whatever force had overwhelmed her. She lowered her hands back to her sides as the metallic shard in her back ceased its ominous glow. She then panted for a few seconds before lifting her head and opening her eyes toward Tira. Her pupils now held a subtle look of insanity, and her lips curled into a peaceful smile. This informed Tira that the young priestess's corruption was complete.

"See? I told you so."

Tira spoke with a playful glance as she reached toward Talim's back. With a swift tug, she removed the shard from her new partner's flesh, causing Talim to briefly wince and yelp. Tira brought the fragment to her mouth to lick away the few drops of blood on its tip. A tiny giggle escaped her lips, and she placed the weapon in a pocket on her scarlet battle dress. As Talim remained in slight pain, Tira reached for the wound again. The assassin's hand emitted a small, dark aura as her gloved fingers traced the black mark now branding Talim's shoulder, causing the defeated heroine's injury to rapidly heal. Talim blinked in surprise when relief came to her, and she shyly spoke as Tira pulled her hand away.

"H-... how did you do that, Tira?"

Tira grinned proudly when she answered.

"It's one of the new powers that thing gave you. Soul Edge thinks puppets like you and me are more useful when we can't be broken so easily."

She happily tilted her head before she continued.

"Don't worry. You'll learn how to do it yourself soon enough."

Talim questioned her companion again in the same curious manner as before.

"Can you teach me how? I don't want to let him down."

Tira replied as her smirk widened.

"Of course, but you need to go through a bit of an initiation before I can tell you all of his secrets."

She then looked toward the crumbling church ceiling in thought, silently considering what grotesque act of violence would appease their wicked leader. When she settled on a suitable mission, her glance returned to Talim.

"How about we spend the night slaughtering the idiots at your old temple?"

Talim in nodded to this proposal with rather horrifying enthusiasm, causing the tassles in her headdress to bob. A look of sinister glee then appeared on her face.

"Sure!"

Satisfied with her ally's response, Tira lifted her chakram from the chapel floor and returned to her feet. Talim followed suit after reclaiming her own ivory-colored tonfa and attaching them to her belt. From that moment on, the psychosis the two girls shared bound them together like sisters. They lived as outlaws, punishing anyone who opposed Soul Edge's will in twisted delight. The only things they would ever try to protect were their master and each other.


	3. Joining the Team

**Author's note:** This probably makes a lot more sense after you've read the alternate ending.

* * *

Pyrrha was in the pantheon praying before the statue of Athena when they came for her. Staring down toward Pyrrha's kneeling form, Tira and Talim shared the obvious symptoms of those afflicted with the curse of Soul Edge. They had identical devious smirks on their faces and the same demonic aura in their eyes. Neither of them looked a day older than Pyrrha despite both being twice her age. Eternal youth was the reward for being loyal to Soul Edge, as that is what he craved for the most. There was no better thrill than ruining a young woman's innocence.

Tira tilted her head thoughtfully as she studied her target.

"You're just the type the master is looking for, Pyrrha. He'll be proud of us when we get you to join his side."

Pyrrha's eyes widened with fright. She was a pacifist in heart, always preferring not to fight, and she tried to hide the fact her sword arm was shaking as she gazed back toward her uninvited guests. Despite her reservations, she knew exactly what she was facing.

"Why would I ever do something so horrible?"

Talim playfully turned toward her partner in response.

"Let's show her."

Tira narrowed her eyes toward Pyrrha. She readied her chakram as Talim raised her tonfa from her belt. With no other choice, Pyrrha reached to the ground at her sides and reluctantly claimed her sword and shield. She fought valiantly that day, particularly for a novice swordswoman going against a 2-on-1 disadvantage, but it was not enough to change her fate.

They were situated under the statue of Aphrodite when Pyrrha awoke. The first thing she felt was the translucent silk of Talim's wind dancer pants pressing against her neck. Her head was being carefully supported by Talim's lap, with her blonde hair sprawling across the girl's folded knees. Her clothing was frayed and torn in places, but she sported only a few minor cuts and bruises. Her opponents had been cautious enough not to bring her any deathly injuries. The weapons of all three girls had been scattered in every direction across the floor of circular chamber once the fighting was over.

Tira was straddled over Pyrrha on all fours, making her the middle portion of a human sandwich. The same grin as before appeared on Tira's face before she glanced toward her comrade.

"Ready, Talim?"

The tainted priestess nodded. She sounded anxious about something.

"Just like we practiced."

Pyrrha tried to squirm to safety, but she found the weight of Talim's gloved hands locking her shoulders in place to be too much to overcome in her fatigue. With a feeling of dread growing in her thoughts, Pyrrha fearfully shifted her attention to Tira.

"Wha-… what are you doing?"

Tira looked downward and responded with an impatient frown.

"Stop being so fidgety. I don't have any problems with draining people of their souls, but I've never tried infecting anyone with a piece of someone else's soul. I don't want to mess it up."

A new desperation came to Pyrrha's struggles, but she was too frail to make it last for long. She couldn't imagine what Tira's words meant, and she didn't want to find out. Helpless and cornered, all she could do was hope the gods would protect her.

What happened next left Pyrrha more astonished than afraid. Tira lifted her head and leaned toward Talim. Watching from directly underneath, Pyrrha saw her two captors connect at the lips and share an oddly timed kiss. The two girls revealed themselves to be rather noisy lovers when they offered small, muffled moans into each others' mouths. At the height of their passion, Pyrrha could feel Talim's grip slightly weaken around her shoulders.

Tira and Talim returned to their original positions when they were done. Talim was breathing deeply when her partner offered her a slight look of concern.

"Are you okay? You look tired."

Talim curved her lips into a drowsy smile as she quelled Tira's worries.

"You took more than I was expecting, but I'll get over it."

Tira gave a teasing grin of her own before apologizing.

"Sorry. I couldn't help myself."

Talim smile grew brighter. She took Tira's words as a compliment.

"That's okay. Just give it to her while it's still fresh."

Pyrrha was left bothered by the exchange.

Almost in unison, Tira and Talim turned their heads downward toward their prey. Tira's shadow loomed over Pyrrha's face as she closed her eyes and parted her lips for a new kiss. Before Pyrrha could raise any objections, her mouth was sealed by Tira's. She was now a victim of her opponent's apparently lustful impulses.

Pyrrha could soon feel Tira's tongue. The moist muscle breached her lips at a slow pace, probably afraid of being bitten. Even in her current state, however, Pyrrha would never do it. The taste of blood was the only thing that worried the timid girl more than the sight of it.

Finding herself safe at home, Tira proceeded with her attack. She danced around Pyrrha's tongue, enjoying the vibrations each time her captive made another muffled complaint. These sounds faded as Pyrrha succumbed to the dark magic at work.

A sudden fog began to envelope Pyrrha's mind, causing her to forget how disgusted and humiliated she felt and instead find her experience to be relaxing. Once she was sufficiently numbed, she could feel Tira prod her tongue even further into her mouth. At first it simply poked around deeper in her mouth, but then it managed to reach much further than any human tongue should. Pyrrha's last ounce of willpower was spent on a tiny horrified whimper as she realized what she was feeling in her mouth wasn't a tongue at all. It felt more like a serpent burrowing down her throat and slivering toward her heart. Whether Tira had actually placed some living creature in her mouth or it was all a nightmarish illusion was impossible to say, but one thing was certain: When the invader reached its destination, Pyrrha started hearing the voices.

Thousands of ghostly whispers polluted Pyrrha's mind, but she was too forgone to let it bother her. She didn't mind it when she felt one of Tira's claw gauntlets gently wrap around the exposed part of her thigh between her leather stalking and miniskirt. Likewise, she made no effort to resist Talim's nimble, greedy hands moving from her shoulders and plucking at the laces of her blouse, looking for a way in. Everything grew dark for Pyrrha, making her feel as if she were falling asleep while being swarmed from all sides.

When Tira released her prey and lifted herself to her knees, she could see Pyrrha's eyes now matched her own. The plan was a success, and Soul Edge's newest servant closed her eyes as she let off a satisfied purr. She then looked over her shoulder, addressing the girl behind her in a curious tone.

"Mother…?"

A soft blush appeared on Talim's face as she shyly looked to the side.

"You may have been created from me, but I don't think we're THAT close, Pyrrha."

Tira spoke next, drawing Pyrrha's attention back toward her. An encouraging smile appeared on her face.

"Yeah. Think of us as big sisters."

Tira cupped one of her gauntlets under her chin and rolled her eyes toward the domed ceiling of the pantheon. She thought out loud with a certain feigned uncertainty in her voice.

"Now, what to do next…"

Pyrrha silently pondered to herself for a moment, trying to make sense of ceaseless cacophony that had broken her mind. A cheerful sparkle appeared in her glowing irises when she spoke to Tira again.

"He wants us to kill Patroklos before he becomes Soul Calibur's vessel, right?"

She didn't hesitate toward the prospect of murdering her own brother. Tira was relieved by this, and she answered with a friendly smirk.

"You're catching on pretty quick."

Pyrrha nestled her head in the pillows formed by Talim's thinly-veiled thighs. Soul Edge's touch had elevated her libido almost as much as her violent impulses, causing scandalous thoughts to brew in her head. She hoped her two colleagues felt the same way.

"Do you think he would mind if we… have some fun first?"

Talim was the one who answered. She immediately understand what Pyrrha was alluding to with her proposal, and she was delighted to hear it.

"Not at all. There's no hurry now that there's three of us."

Whether the hours the three girls spent sharing pleasures of the flesh under the statue of Aphrodite should be considered a form of worship or an act of sacrilege is a matter of debate.


	4. Resurrection

Xiba toppled lifelessly to the grass, nearly cut in half from an oversized chakram wound across his waist. Natsu followed next, riddled with cuts, stabs, and bruises that marked where she had been struck with a Grecian sword and shield. The battle had began after the party's senior member stepped out of the camp, briefly evening the odds for the attackers. What had been a quaint and cheerful gathering only moments ago was now a war zone. Light from the campfire sparkled over the pools of blood that had formed across the earthy ground. Leixia was the only one left fighting for her life, and her defense was growing desperately weaker as a pair of bladed tonfa crashed against her sword.

Talim sneered sadistically as she took another swipe at Leixia. The defender let out a frightened yell when her oriental shortsword finally buckled under Talim's brutal nature and exploded into a shower of silver splinters. Without a moment of mercy, Talim sliced through Leixia's defenseless silk dress and gouged the flesh and muscle beneath. The wounded girl soon met the same grisly end as her fellow campers and crumpled to the ground. Talim's demented expression never changed.

Tira and Pyrrha were free to watch the final moments of Talim's battle after they had dealt with their own objectives. When the deed was done and the final painful breath had escaped Leixia's lips, Tira hoisted her chakram to her shoulder, muttered some obscenities to herself, and clutched her temple as if she were fighting a sudden headache.

"Damn it, Talim! She was the one we were supposed to capture alive!"

The former wind priestess calmly gazed toward the fresh corpse at her feet and offered a bored shrug. She replied as she fastened her elbow blades to her belt.

"It's not like I had a choice. She wouldn't give up."

Tira's patience was clearly wearing thin. She grit her teeth as she shouted in return.

"You could have just knocked her out or something. You didn't have to KILL her!"

Talim sighed, more likely conveying annoyance rather than a sense of defeat. Her voice lowered to an angry mumble.

"Fine. Maybe I got a little carried away this time."

As Tira and Talim become absorbed in their bickering, Pyrrha quietly knelt to Leixia's side and set her sword and shield on the ground. Her eyes curiously studied the fallen girl's body before settling on a specific object, a small trinket that Leixia had received from her parents and always wore around her neck. Pyrrha snapped the necklace from the collar of Leixia's dress with a swift tug and gave it a closer look in her palm. A second later, a satisfied smile curled across her mouth. She cupped both of her hands around the pendant and began a silent prayer.

Oblivious to what was happening only a few feet away, Talim continued her argument with Tira.

"Does it really matter? We'll find someone else."

Tira was becoming increasingly more agitated by Talim's attempts at oversimplifying the situation. The claw-shaped armor around her fingers made a clinking sound as her free hand tightened into a fist.

"Someone ELSE? Where exactly are we going to find another female descendant of a Soul Calibur wielder? She's the whole reason Master sent us out here!"

Talim responded with another neglectful shrug.

"We can ask around."

A sudden red light escaped the gaps between Pyrrha's folded fingers. When she opened her hands, Leixia's pendant was left freely floating in the air and its glow grew even brighter. Pyrrha carefully guided it downward until it touched Leixia's sternum, where it seemed to pulsate with life and slowly rooted itself to the slain girl's body. Once it had taken permanent residence on the bare skin just below her choker, her wounds miraculously began to close. Her nose gently twitched and her chest quietly rose and fell as her breath returned.

Tira continued her scolding, lowering her voice to a grumble as she winced at her imaginary headache.

"You really messed this one up, Talim. He's not going to be happy when we tell him what happened."

Leixia's sleeping form levitated out of the grass. Once she was a few feet off the ground, an unseen force rotated her into a vertical position and lowered her lightly on her feet. When her eyes opened, her irises glowed with the same crimson tint as the jewel at her throat.

On the opposite side of the camp grounds, Talim rolled her eyes at Tira's warning.

"Take it easy. You're just angry I've killed more people than you."

Her words were enough to cause Tira's rage to return in full force.

"You wouldn't be able to kill anyone if I hadn't recruited you!"

Talim snorted as she recalled the day they had fought in the ruined chapel nearly two decades ago, where her weaker previous self had succumbed to a deadly poison and she had been granted a new life as a servant of the evil. The scar on her back made it hard to forget.

"Soul Edge recruited me. You were just his delivery girl."

Leixia reached outward with one arm, allowing a new weapon to materialize in her hand. It was a ceremonial blade with a design similar to the one Talim had ruined minutes earlier, only this version seemed to be crafted out of obsidian, sported a pair of demonic eyes on the hilt, and subtly quivered with a life of its own.

Tira fumed at Talim's mockery. Before the argument could take a turn for the violent, however, Pyrrha's alarmingly soft, happy voice caught their attention and prevented any further escalation.

"Welcome back, Leixia."

They turned to see everything they had missed. Leixia appeared to be her usual lively self, minus the glow in her eyes and the fact her pendant was now fused to her breastbone, faintly flickering in the same rhythm as a heartbeat. Pyrrha's incantation had also healed all of her wounds and cleaned any trace of injury. All that remained were the spots where Talim had slashed her dress, revealing small portions of the flawless skin underneath.

Tira blinked in confusion at Leixia, then glanced toward Pyrrha.

"What did you do?"

Pyrrha smiled modestly in response. She allowed herself to take pride in her hard work.

"I prayed to Soul Edge for help. Since I acted quickly, he was able to catch Leixia's soul before she reached Elysium."

Her eyes trailed toward her as she continued sharing her pagan knowledge.

"Her original body was too damaged to be used directly as a vessel, so I offered him her pendant as a substitute. It's just the right size to keep her spirit trapped and bring her under his will."

Talim looked as if she was about to snicker at Tira.

"Sounds like I didn't screw up the plan after all."

Tira paused for another moment, then spoke with a quirked head and a raised eyebrow.

"Okay, but... is she on our side yet?"

Leixia heard the rustle of leaves approaching her from behind. All four women turned toward the sound to see Maxi stepping out of the brush and onto the campsite. The veteran fighter immediately knew something was wrong, and the only thing that surprised him more than the sudden presence of three of Soul Edge's minions were the mutilated bodies of two of his younger comrades strewn across the ground. It took him a second to gather his bearings and speak toward no one in particular.

"What happened here?"

Leixia recognized her unsuspecting mentor and was the first to answer. She was standing almost face to face with him when he walked onto the scene, and she swiftly launched herself into the air and twirled over his head. Before he had any idea what was happening, she landed behind him, crouched to the grass, and aimed a low slash at the backs of his ankles. Maxi screamed in agony and hunched over on his now paralyzed legs, struggling to look over his shoulder as he gasped in disbelief.

"Leixia... why... ?"

A grin appeared on her face as she responded in a delightfully sinister voice.

"Master says it's time for you to retire, old man."

The black tassel that decorated Leixia's newly forged blade danced through the air as she thrust downward. Despite the weapon's compact and lightweight design, she was able to summon the strength necessary to steer the tip through the back of Maxi's shoulder and out the front of his chest, impaling his heart somewhere in between. As he lifelessly slumped forward, she firmly planted the sole of her slipper on his back and used her leg to push his carcass off of her blade. She giggled when a thin stream of blood rained across her cheeks.

Talim casually turned her head to answer Tira's question.

"Guess so."


	5. Soothslayer

Viola was surrounded by four unwelcome visitors. Her day had started with a typical trek through the woods just outside the Schwarzwind citadel, but now she was facing the unknown. Something about these young women was interfering with her heightened perception and prevented her from reading their thoughts, but an irking suspicion still told her their intentions weren't for the better. Her signature weapon-a crystal ball that acted as her familiar-hovered lonesomely somewhere in the forest ceiling.

Tira spoke once she got a chance to glimpse over her target.

"It's been a while, Amy. I like your new look."

Viola didn't have any memory of that name. Could these strange girls have known something about her amnesia? She pulled her hood further over her brow before she answered in a cautious voice.

"My name is Viola."

Pyrrha stood just beside Tira, shaking her head and blowing a puff of air through pursed lips.

"Sure, Amy. Call yourself whatever you want."

Tira curiously poked the left side of Viola's bosom with her armored index finger, adding her commentary once she assessed its quality.

"At least you filled out nicely."

Viola crossed an arm over her chest in instant modesty and backed out of Tira's reach. A look of scornful disgust grew on her face as she spoke in a cold tone.

"That's quite enough. I suggest you be on your way before any harm comes to you."

Tira tilted her head and snickered.

"You could have just told me you were ticklish."

Talim crept up behind Viola, wrapping fingerless leather gloves over her shoulders and speaking into her ear with a teasing smirk.

"You don't have to be such a prude, Amy. We're just trying to have some fun."

Viola was becoming increasingly disturbed by this whole ordeal. Without realizing she was playing precisely into her enemy's plan, she raised her clawed hand in a menacing manner and willed her magical orb to join her in battle.

As soon as it was in her sight, Tira hopped from the ground and freely plucked the sphere out of the air.

"Hey Talim, catch!"

Tira passed the orb to Talim. Talim continued down the circle and sent it floating toward Pyrrha. When it finally landed in Leixia's hands, an ominous smile crossed the girl's lips. Tira and Pyrrha closed in around Viola, catching her by the arms before she had a chance to react. Pyrrha was careful to avoid the fingernail blades that armed Viola's right hand.

Leixia lovingly cradled the globe so it pressed against the jewel below her neck. Viola watched in confusion as a stream of thick black ink seeped out of Leixia's gem and rapidly filled the orb, turning its interior into a murky cloud. It lost its crystal transparency and became something resembling a solid obsidian sphere in a matter of seconds. A ring of dark energy burst from the object's diameter once it was filled to the brim, and the blackness suddenly peeled apart to reveal a single demonic eye. Leixia giggled contently as the now cursed artifact left her hands and hovered back toward its owner.

Tira and Pyrrha released Viola from their grip. She didn't understand why they had voluntarily set her free, but she wasn't in the mood to slow down and ask them. With an angered glare, she pointed one of her clawed fingers forward and willed her remote weapon to spring toward the target.

It was a futile effort.

The orb didn't respond to her orders to push her opponents away. It failed to form a protective barrier around her when she motioned for it to do so. It only floated in place, practically taunting her. She realized something was horribly amiss when each member of the surrounding circle took turns laughing at her. This was one of the few times Viola was actually surprised by something.

"What did you do? It's not following my command!"

Leixia was the one to answer, rolling her eyes as she tapped her foot impatiently.

"Well, duh. That's not how it works. You have to follow _his_ command."

This time it was Talim and Pyrrha who took her by the arms. The sweet and supportive way Pyrrha delivered her next words only made them sound more chilling.

"Don't worry, Amy. You'll figure it out after we break you in."

Viola's eyes widened as she tried to squirm away and found Talim and Pyrrha's grip to be impossibly strong. Leixia took the orb in both hands so she could keep it steady. Tira crossed her arms as she oversaw the procedure.

Talim guided Viola's naked palm closer and closer toward the globe in Leixia's arms. Although she still not entirely aware of what they were trying to do, Viola had enough sense to know allowing them to complete their venture was going to have negative consequences.

Talim sounded all too cheerful when she spoke over Viola's resistance.

"Oh, no you don't. You're going through with this whether you want to or not."

Pyrrha joined in with more of her unsettling support.

"Yeah. He just needs to poke around in your brain a little so he can make sure you'll be a good girl. We've all gone through it. It'll be over before you know it, then you'll be one of us."

They anxiously pushed her into her awaiting doom. When the surface of the crystal ball made contact with her fingertips, Viola screamed.

The visions were terrifying. Nauseating. Maddening. When she used to gaze into her crystal ball, she would see glimpses of the future. Now some _thing_ was using the orb as a gateway to gaze into her mind. Her greatest strength had turned into her most vulnerable weakness. She saw whole worlds dominated by Soul Edge's influence, and she lived through the lives of every living being fell to his power in a matter of seconds. Eons flew past as each world ultimately turned to dust, and soon her only companion was the flaming, screaming skeletal figure that comprised Soul Edge's native form. He was the only thing that always survived. He was the only thing that was always true. Each time one torturous, deranged hallucination ended, another came bursting from the back of her mind.

Whatever depraved force was exploiting her powers wasn't going to go away. This wasn't a simple matter of just closing her eyes or turning her head away, as she had done so many times when her crystal ball would show her an unpleasant vision. This was inside of her mind, greedily wearing down her will so it could mate with her consciousness.

From the perspective of her four captors, Viola was a woman in the throes of insanity. She rocked on her knees and clawed at her scalp, trying desperately to rip an invisible entity out of her head. She eventually started to settle down, only to roll her head back and laugh uncontrollably once she caught her breath.

And then there was silence.

Viola opened her eyes once she was back on her feet. Her intense visions had taken their toll by leaving one iris clouded and blind, while the other was now a fiery disc. When her lips pulled back into an oddly serene smile, a pair of ivory fans emerged from her mouth. She was already coming to terms with the fact she possessed a few peculiar traits aside from what her new benefactor had granted her; a certain impurity that she had always tried her best to conceal. Whatever humanity she had clung to to suppress her darker impulses had been strategically ruined, however, leaving her with no reason to hide her full nature.

Viola's crystal ball floated back to her side when it wanted to, not when it was called. The globe normally functioned as a magical beacon that followed her will in battle, but now it seemed to foster a mind of its own. It slowly circled her frame with an almost sensual quality, emitting a faint warmth that it never possessed before. She felt it pass close to her skirts and tenderly brush over the curve of her lower back more than once. She found the gesture comforting.

Tira and her companions regrouped around Viola. The ringleader spoke through a devious grin.

"How do you feel now, Amy?"

Viola replied with only one ominous word.

"Thirsty..."

Leixia broke the eerie atmosphere with a cheerful wink.

"That's Soul Edge for you. He really knows how to drive a girl crazy."

Pyrrha and Talim approached her from behind. Talim peeped over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of the crystal ball.

"Do you see anything?"

The globe landed gently in a pedestal formed by Viola's open palm. Her mismatched eyes gazed into the single flaming eye staring back at her, seeing things only a sharply trained fortune teller would be able to see. Although it had been corrupted into yet another manifestation of Soul Edge's will, the globe still allowed her to use her certain precognitive abilities that reached beyond his domain. After she spent several moments focusing on one particular spot on the face of the glass, she spoke in a hushed tone.

"They're saying I've been gone too long. They're following me."

Pyrrha leaned over Viola's opposite shoulder and squinted, straining to see whatever was bothering the oracle.

"Who's following you?"

Viola gazed deeper. Her response came with an increased urgency.

"Schwarzwind. Hide and wait for my signal."

Leixia curled her nose and planted her fists against her hips as her eyes shifted away in thought. One of her eyebrows perked when she decided she couldn't understand Viola's vague advice.

"What signal?"

Viola kept politely to herself, never looking away from her globe.

"You'll know when the time is right."

Viola was standing alone in the middle of the path when Siegfried and Zwei arrived. Although she was facing the two mercenaries, her head was low and her hood was high, casting a shadow that obscured everything but the lower part of her face and her silver curls. She remained silent even when they stopped directly in front of her. After an awkward pause, Siegfried stepped forward and offered a concerned look.

"Is something wrong, Viola?"

Viola's gaze remained locked toward the ground as she answered in slightly above a whisper.

"You are."

Siegfried's concern turned to confusion.

"What?"

Viola finally lifted her head so the two mercenaries could witness her altered features. Her crystal ball levitated up from a hiding place behind her shoulder, staring directly at the onlookers as if it were taking the place of Viola's bad eye. Her voice changed from soft and charming to icy and menacing.

"You're wrong for ever thinking you could truly escape Master's power. Now he's come for your soul."

Siegfried stepped back with a horrified gasped as he recalled his own experience as one of Soul Edge's vessels, but Zwei remained baffled.

"Is this some kind of joke?"

Viola spread her arms and turned on one leg in a spontaneous exotic dance. Her movements summoned a circle of fire around the dry forest brush, trapping the group in a relatively small space. Four more shadowy figures leapt down from the surrounding trees to join the inferno.

Siegfried and Zwei only caught brief flashes of the femme fatales as they were butchered by a Grecian broadsword, a Chinese shortsword, a pair of sharpened tonfa, an enormous ring blade, and a set of knife-like claws. Once he fell to the ground and found himself immobilized by his injuries, a small, dark shape straddled over Siegfried and carefully tugged his gorget away with slender fingers. He thought he smelled Viola's perfume as he felt two hungry fangs slip into his neck, but it was impossible to know for certain as his mind struggled to make sense of the carnage. Turning his head away from the pain, he barely managed to see Tira holding a wounded Zwei against the trunk of a tree, writhing seductively against the poor fool as her friends cheered her on and she stole his remaining strength with a poisonous kiss.

When the ambush was over, the fire died along with the two men.

Thin streams of smoke rose around the forest clearing. Viola wiped a faint trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth, then peered into her black looking glass in deep meditation. Tira and Pyrrha tried to look into the orb from opposite sides without much luck. Talim stood slightly away from the group, stretching her arms and peacefully sighing as a gentle gust of wind cooled her off. Leixia poked at Zwei's eviscerated remains with the toe of her slipper, then spoke to no one in particular.

"He was right about one thing. These guys were a joke."

Pyrrha gave up in her attempts and turned her attention toward her clairvoyant partner.

"What do you see now, Amy?"

Viola hesitated to answer as her eyes remained fixated on the glowing orb. She shook her head in uncertainty when she shared her findings.

"A few things. I'll have to sort through the visions before I can tell you which way we should be heading."

Tira, Leixia, and Pyrrha each offered separate discouraged looks. Talim raised her voice in complaint as she worked a knot out of her shoulder.

"Can't you hurry it up? It's boring when everything we fight ends up dying so quickly."

Viola twisted her lips in mild annoyance before she softly replied.

"Fortune telling is no easy art. Give me time and I'll see that your bloodlust is well sated."

Her answer seemed to please the rest of her party.


End file.
